Here is his English brother!

Diablo Phase 1 here.

Despite the high miles yours is looking nice, I'm sure with some work on the mechanicals you'll have a great car to enjoy!

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61k miles Ph.1 Diablo '6 Project Thread

Nice looking phase 1 gti you have purchased there mate,enjoy

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http://s1160.photobucket.com/albums/q486/mcvite/

For the mileage that looks in great condition. Good luck sorting all the issues.

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See the sheer power and might of the lesser known burrowing owl.

So, another day in the garage went by Saturday.
I spend more that 8 hours out there, but got a bit less done than expected.
It was just one of those days, where things didn't go quite to plan.

The day started good though, and I started it by opening the presents I got for it, and took a photo


I got parts from both kfzteile.de and aepdirect.com.
I hadn't ordered by aep before, and was a bit nervous, as I had decided to get the majority there, because they supposedly only stock OEM parts, and pretty cheap too. The parts arrived quickly, and both oilfiler, and rear disks came in peugeot boxes. The discs were NOS, but with only very minor rust spots. Only thing was the rear brake pads, which were from apec, which I haven't heard of before. All in all pretty satisfied.
Kfzteile.de is the cheapest German online part store that I know of. They have both very cheap (read: crap) parts, and OE stuff. The rear caliper repair kits were for 30mm pistons, and not 32mm, but other than that no faults. I have shopped there 10 times or so now, and only two minor mistakes have been made.

I wanted to change the gear box oil, as I couldn't use 2nd gear until the oil was warm - it just wouldn't go in, without really forcing it to. I have learned my lesson from earlier PSA cars, and got the only oil I ever found to work, the specified 70w80.
I wanted to order 3 liters, but it must have slipped my mind, as the receipt only said two, so it’s running a bit low now, as nothing came out of the level checker hole.
I expected muddy oil to come out, because of the bad gear changes, but instead the finest honey ran out
Lyckily the oil must have been the typical 75w90 or something, because the gears changed a lot better with the new oil right away - pheeew.



Then I decided to change the thermostat and the coolant to the new red stuff.
It's important to flush the system very well, as the two types of coolant don't mix, and supposedly turn to a gelly like substance. So of the old thermostat went, along with the housing, as it was gunked up by the seals.






I checked both the old and the new thermostat in hot water, and the old one worked just fine, but the gasket was very old and cracked, so I decided to change it all.




I then soaked the housing in boiling water with citric acid, so loosen up the gunk and lime scale, which always works nicely. The citric acid will clean copper and brass too, just don’t leave it in for too long...
I carefully scraped the stuff of with a screwsriver, taking only what had become loose, and the then soaked and repeated, untill it was clean.





I then put it all together again, with the new thermostat, and filled with hot tap water. I started the car, and bled the system, and drove a few miles, and drained the water again. I was actually going to do a descaling/degreasing with dishwasher tabs, followed by citric acid, then clean water, but decided it wasn’t nessesary by the looks of the cylinder head water outlet.

I then set up a way to flush the system. I took the upper hose off on the thermostat housing, and put a garden hose up into it. I blanked the exposed outlet with a piece of hose stuffed shut with a rubber thingy and a bolt. Then i turned on the taps, and let the water run for a few minutes. I had both the radiator cap, and the buttom drain off. The water was a bit rusty, but soon cleared.




I then bled the system again, started the car, let it get hot, and drained and flushed for a last time.

I had to cut a new gasket, because I forgot to get one, but it all went together well.
Then things started to go wrong, as I started bonking , as I didn’t bring any food along, because I was just out to do a few quick fixes

I filled the radiator with coolant and destilled water 50/50 mix, and started the car, but I completely forgot to loosen the bleed screw on the thermostat housing, so the car got hot for a while. God knows how hot, but it was enough to make me paranoid about the head gasket. When i loosened the bleed screw on the heater matrix, it steamed out under pretty high pressure, but as i realized my brain fart, and loosed the thermostat housing bleed screw, the car swallowed a lot of coolant after a short while in blind panic. I used a coke bottle with an o-ring, which worked a treat, and it held itself, as long as there was something in it.



The biggest scare was when the car, after i bled it, steamed out of the exhaust
Thinking back, I think it must have been sprayed in to the throttlebody by the heater matrix bleed screw, when I bled it. I saw oil in the water too, but that could have been the new fluid cleaning old stuff out.

I did not sleep well that night, and the next day the car gurgled when cold, so I was afraid the gasket had actually gone. I drove almost 200 miles yesterday, and had no time to bleed again before setting off. I didn't take it easy on it, because I was so mad about it all.
The whole family was together at my moms, for an Easter lunch, and I promised my brother in law, that he could take it for a blast. Somehow the system then bled itself, and the car never even got up to 90 degrees, and fell down to a steady 84 for cruising. It hasn't used any coolant either. I think I might have gotten away with it, but I'm a bit of a wreck still

The car drives better, since I changed the thermostat, so that is a plus. The temperatures have gone up by about 3-4 degrees, so I guess the fuel mixture is a bit leaner by that operating temperature, and burns better.

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My silver Fox thread


My wanted add

Thanks Mik.

Makes sense to pour some coolant in at the top. I will keep that in mind for next time.

I also read several places that 2L should be enough, but the level check did say otherwise.
How much short it is, is hard to tell though, but probably not very much - not enough to harm anything anyways.
Yeah, changing again after 3 years is probably not a bad idea, as it's pretty easy to do, compared to changing synchros!

Done a bit of stuff today already. The weather was nice, the sun was out, and it was pretty warm, so
I decided to go back inside and solder some stuff

I had no light in the window switches, and the electric mirrors didn't work.
So I started with the mirror "joystick", and had a tough time finding out why that one didn't work


Cleaned that up with an old toothbrush, and some of this stuff:


It's really the best stuff I know of for old electronics. Kontakt 60+ (the + is important)both cleans, makes better connections, and protects against corrotion.

I then took apart the window switches, and found small bulbs inside, that were all past it. I had no way of knowing which size was the correct one, but luckily I found this thread. I went out and got three 12v 60mA bulbs, and changed them out. The two switches for the passenger windows, were very easy as the don't need to be soldered.

lift the top of with a small screwdriver


Take a pair of small pliers, and gently persuade the yellow insert out


Then unwrap the old bulb, and wrap the new one in. The legs on the new bulbs were too short, so i had to cut two new slots, so they could reach.


The drivers side window switch had to get the bulb soldered in, but it was pretty straight forward.
The light came back on, and the light were working, but 60mA seems like a bit much on the drivers side switch, as it is much brighter that the others.

What is pretty weird though, is that the two switches in the drivers door, work in opposite ways;
A push in one direction make one window go up, while it means down on the other .
It's not as simple as rotating one of the switches, as there are non symmetrical slots for them in the door card, so they only go in one way.
Is that normal??

The drivers side switch is also very easy to push down, while the others offers some resistance, and have that nice comforting "click". Pedantic stuff? yep! - but it's bloody annoying!

The mirror switch worked a treat - sort off. I can go up/down on the drivers side, and left/right on the pass. side, but when I open the door, I can go left/right on the drivers side too, but the left speaker stops working
- Door loom time, I guess...

I also had an intermittent airbag light coming on, but that one was nice and easy; Pulled the plug under the seat apart, sprayed with kontakt 60+ = problem gone

Now out for a blast in the nice weather, but maybe go round to pump the left rear tire first, as it looses one bar of pressure over night



P.S. If someone has a set of the 15" inch wheel trims that came on the S16 or the 5 door XSi in the UK (I believe)
I am interested in those, if they are in (very) good condition, so please come forward
I need a few other bits and bobs as well, like the fogs, heated seat switches and such small stuff.

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My silver Fox thread


My wanted add

Oh mate, wounded for you. Was reading it with great interest. Seems you have as much luck as I do.

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I'm Si btw

Night Blue VW Golf GTD
Bianca LBSC Rallye - Track/Road Slag Project Thread
Sparkling Silver Mini Cooper D - Super Dooper - (The other half's wheels)

Thanks Si - hopefully this thread will pick up in a more interesting direction again

@gretsch... It will get fixed - or at least I'm working in that direction, but I'm not expecting anything these days.
I have had a fair bit of bad luck lately, and ironically I knew this accident was coming - well not exactly, but I just had a gut feeling that something was bound to happen.

In other news... I just scored a set of these puppies:



They are super light! - ghetto OZ super leggera FTW
32 ish £ for the set hihi

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My silver Fox thread


My wanted add

Where did you learn the expression "brain fart"? I don't hear it often but I laughed when I saw that, it is normally UK/Australian specific. Mind you a lot of Danes sound like English native speakers with English-sounding accents and everything, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Gutted for you about the accident, but at least the whole car wasn't FUBARed. Love your attention to detail in putting it back together.

I've got a set of "ghetto superleggeras" on my car, which is a Rallye so I thought they went with the Rallye lightweight ethos. Are you going to paint them? I did mine in Peugeot Iron Grey, which goes well with my Cherry Red car. And with the spare as well that is almost 19kg lighter, most of it off the unsprung weight.

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Cherry Rallye SOLD

Thanks chaps
Yep, the 1,4 is the organ donor.

Haha, I don't know where i picked that up Mik, but it's a good expression that really paints a picture.
Yeah, we Danes have a lot of English lessons, starting in the 3rd grade already, so most of us "young ones" usually know the language pretty well. I don't sound like a native Englishman though - far from it.

I think I'm going to use XSi hubcaps, and just paint the rims black. - If I can find any, that is.



It's not to anyone's taste, but to me they look nice, and very french. I actually spent hours figuring out what kind of alloys they were, until I finally found out, that they where wheel trims

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My silver Fox thread


My wanted add

Lovely attention to detail, hope you didn't break anything too important in the deer incident!

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Current Peugeot stable:

'99 306 gti6
'02 306 hdi estate
'97 306 Dturbo
'94 106 rallye 16v

@retropug Thanks man. Yeah the foil worked fine, just hope it will handle the heat inside. Thanks for the tip on indicators. Aepdirect have some for cheap too.

@ozonehostile (what a name - lol) Thanks. I am a bit of a perfectionist sometimes, so It's a bit hard for me to own a 200.000 mile shed

@aaron Indeed! I'm not giving up on that thing, before it has at least one lap on the ring on it!

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My silver Fox thread


My wanted add